Monday, May 10, 2010

Movin' and a Stakin'

as i mentioned yesterday, the trip to Mains reminded me of all that needs to be done before we get too crazy with buying new plants. first on the list-make more room in the potager (i forgot recently that i have been trying to be more French-ish) by moving the overgrown herbs.

in the near bed on the left is the St. John's Wort, grown to enormous proportions. i took a shovel, dug it up....

and planted some cabbage. (the camera was acting up yesterday-lighting is awful-but at the bottom of the photo is a lot of the replanted spinach popping up)

one of the five lavender plants that need moved

and one of the two areas of oregano that i had planted as a nice edging, but is now far too large.

the next step is digging a foot and a half or two foot bed on the outside of the potager to plant all of these herbs (mint, sage, lemon balm, and chives included-though more chives will move out to edge the cutting garden)

the St. John's Wort is, for now, in a pot on the patio, and as it grows upright as well as outward, it looks nice spilling out of the pot. some of the nicotiana from Mains just planted.

another shot of the St. John's Wort

also planted four Forget-Me-Not plants in the patio bed.

the Fall God raspberries continue to grow

and the blackberries, full of flowers, are falling all over in a very messy way

so i staked them up in a very tidy way

if you look close you can see all of the slightly berry shaped flowers and buds

a close up. each flower will (hopefully) become a berry

and a close up of the busy little honeybee working his stinger off. so happy to see the honeybees when there have been so many reports of colony collapse in the past few years. entire hives can get wiped out, and at first it was thought to be a parasite, though now scientists aren't so sure.

so don't go mashin' up your baby bumble bees! they are the hardest workers in the garden.

3 comments:

Strange info from my southern family. Did you know this recent cold snap is coralated with the blackberry bushes blooming? My Dad has always said you can count on a cold spell when the redbud trees bloom and when the blackberries bloom. Just some interesting trivia for you. You may have already been aware of that though. Gardens looking great Matty. Fertilizer is still stacking up one apple at a time. LOL!

i had never heard that before-i wonder if it makes the berries sweeter.i haven't forgotten about that fertilizer. my mom received a compost tumbler for mothers day, so we may need a stack of "apples" to use as top dressing. we also need to clean up the cutting garden, and till it, which i believe may be an opportune time for a little manure.